Josephus: The Jewish War, Books I-II (Loeb Classical Library No. 203) (Volume I)

The Jewish War by Flavious Josephus is an excellent read about the beginings of Roman rule in the Middle East to the Jewish War of 66-67 AD. The Penguin Classics edition is a well translated, lade out and well edited edition of Josephus's discription of events. It is a wealth of information for anyone who wants to learn about the First Jewish War.

I found Josephus to be an excellent source of history because he was both an eyewitness and a participant. Though undoubtedly slanted toward his own personal opinion, I think the events Joseph described really happened. He, at first, was part of the rebellion against Rome, but it seems he had reservations about the wisdom of the rebellion. He did fight, however, but was defeated and captured.After his capture, he apparently realized the hopelessness of war against Rome and seemed to have been surprised and saddened by the civil wars, murders, and political infighting of the Judeans within Jerusalem. He tried many times to shame them out of their infighting, and he encouraged them to surrender undoubtedly because, due to their disunity, they faced certain defeat. He is sometimes referred to as a traitor because he did not support the rebellion to the end. I don't think this is fair to Josephus. Not every political movement in a country is righteous and justified. I wonder how I would act were I were a German citizen during the Nazi era or an Iraqi during Saddam Hussein's defiance of international law.I found Josephus to be a very rich source of information for "Revelation and the Fall of Judea." I am very grateful that Josephus took the time to write such a detailed account of what he saw. He writes his history almost like a novel. This easy to understand translation makes for very interesting reading. I highly recommend this book.

Part history, part memoir, Josephus' account of the events leading up to and during the Jewish revolt against Rome from A. D. 66 to A. D. 73 is still regarded by many historians as the primary account of the war. Admittedly, it is a heavily biased account, a mea culpea written to restore Josephus' tarnished reputation among his fellow Jews and to heap praise on his benefactors, the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus. I commend Penguin Classics for issuing a very readable translation that was written in 20th Century English. Anyone interested in getting a glimpse into what Rome or ancient Judea was like during the first century before or after the birth of Christ will find this essential reading.

The Jewish War is a very valuable source in studying the Jewsih history under the Roman domination. The book covers the facts happened from the occupation of the Greek in Jews, to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. In other words, it is crossing from the Old Testament to the New Testament. However, most of the events it recorded are not covered in the Scripture. Such events as the domination of the Greek and the Macabee reovlt, a period between the two Testaments, are always missed by the Christian since it is not recorded in the Bible. Also, the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, famous to most of the Christian, but only know little. So, this book supplies a lot of information for the background of the Old and New testaments. Herod, Flenix, King Agrippas, they were the names that are familiar with. Therefore, to better understand the New Testament, this book is a must. In imitating Herotodus's style in writing history, Josephus left a lot of other information when depicting the Jewish-Roman war. This book is thus a good source-book for the solidery system of the Roman. How the Roman soldiers matched, how they fought, how they used their battling machinery etc. , and also the geographic information of Palestine and Israel. I highly recommend this book.

The "real" Josephus is a very hot topic among Christian theologians looking for the actuality behind the gospels and students of Judaica trying to go beyond Josephus' usual superficial "traitor" image. If you can't read the original Greek, the next best thing is to read the Loeb (Harvard U. Press) Classics edition with facing English and Greek text. However, even that format might be heavy going for the more casual, but curious, reader. The Penguin edition is far from a watered down popularized version of the Loeb. It is a condensed rendering without sacrificing essential detail. The liberties taken by Williamson largely consist of rearranging J's clumsy seven parts into 23 easily digested chapters. The most valuable part of this edition, however, is not Willliamson's lucid translation but E. Mary Smallwood's outstanding notes and appendices. Her historical asides provide a crash course in the then-current scholarship on the Josephus Problem. The narrator is a self-serving,wiley ex-Priest of the Jerusalem Temple who was a "general" on the crucial Galilee front, until he was taken captive under mysterious circumstances. He cleverly prophesized" that his captor, Vespasian, would be the next emperor. Meanwhile, J served his former enemy as an intelligence analyst and intermediary. Eventually, after the fall of Judaea, he became a protege Emperor Vespasian and his son Titus, soon to be successor. Using his own notes and memory (quite selective and filtered) and the official field reports as well as the war diaries of Vespasian and Titus, Jewish expatriate Josephus wrote what amounts to the official Roman military history of the war against the Jews. Yet he did not totally sell out. He managed to portray his countrymen as mounting a valiant, though nherently futile, effort. This is no dry dusty "classic" -- it is an exciting, dramatic illustration of how Roman military power deals with an intractable and fanatic province. Apart from Julius Caesar's accounts of his military exploits, there are few such detailed expositions of imperial Rome at war.If you have any interest in the crisis of Judaism, the birth of Christianity, the Roman War Machine, or simply a cracking good adventure yarn...this book is for you. Josephus' story behind the history would make an excellent topic for a screenplay. Jim Bloom